.. and enjoyed the course. Mostly flowy swoopy on the downhill stuff, a little tech section down a creek bed and a fair sort of climb back up to finish / transition. Great viewing from the transition area as well. Pretty open, so you'll need sunscreen if its warm and sunny.

Looking at my race results from last year it was about 9km/lap and 120m elevation/lap. It was pretty flat with nearly all the climbing in the last 1.5km. As Lach says it is out in the open so sunburn is a factor. Fast & flowing. Very enjoyable course. The only technical bits are where they have ramps going over the barbed wire fences.

Hey so thanks for the input above guys. By a weird coincidence it turned into a race for 3rd in category between our team "Intentionally Left Blank" and a chasing Hasbeen Racing.
I think both teams pushed hard and the gap shrank to about 6 seconds in our favour at one point.We beasted ourselves every lap and finally came away with the result. Pleasure to have raced against you fellas.

Pretty tough course in that it was pedal pedal pedal pedal...and also the mud was an energy sapper. Had one off which was a slow speed low-side in the gloop on a right hander and managed to jump off the side of one of the first bridges into the swamp when coming in too hot on the wrong line. Luckily no mechanicals.

Got in just under the 12hrs to send our last rider out for a heroic final lap that got us up to 9th overall in the 4-men.

Could have done with a big bonfire by the transition cos the wind was cutting us in half, especially when the sun went down.

Congratulations on the third place Nigel, well done. We thought we had you when we got close but you obviously had more in the tank than we did.
A great days racing made difficult by some of the bog holes, some very heavy grassy sections and a wind that contained ice knives. I think the shortening of the track made it a little tougher too as it really felt like a sprint every lap and then not a great deal of rest before you were off again. At least we didn't have to do that leg sapping climb from the dam!

Thanks. We didn't go there with any expectations of a podium to be honest.It was meant to be a social one for us. Didn't turn out quite like that in the end! As for more in the tank I don't know. We did do very consistant laps though which I was surprised at because each lap felt really different to the last. We managed to screw up three..yes three transitions during the day. Two because the next rider was still in the loo and one because the lapping rider came in way quicker than we thought and our next rider was off down the road somewhere warming up. Bloody amateurs. Put a bit more pressure on us when you guys came tearing up behind. To be honest we thought you'd got us too but we just kept our heads down and it seemed to work itself out. Next time come and say hi. Cheers. Nige

We also went as a social team but as always you end up flogging yourself, mainly trying to better your team mates times.
We had a young enduro pinner on our team who I don't think made a single transition, his bars came loose on his first lap causing a big stack, he head-butted a tree on his 2nd lap and we sent him on a double when Big Steve's busted a chain through transition and we all missed at least one off doing random things.
The mid section of the race was quite good - early it was muddy and late it was freezing.
I think that's 5 x 12hr RT races we've had a crack at in a row now.

Yeah Ian we saw your mate come through holding on to what was left of his bars. Tough start for him.
And agree, the track was in great shape in the middle there but got sticky again when the sun went in.
More bonfires next time too please.